County Clerk Projects 4% Turnout for Primary Runoffs

Voting booths in polling place

Next week's primary runoffs in Harris County are drawing a whopping 4.3 percent of registered voters who will decide candidates for everything from Congress to local judges.

Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart expected the dismal turnout, saying fewer candidates bring in fewer voters -- especially for a primary runoff.

"My expectation is both parties will probably break 50,000 for the runoff, that's less than a third of what they did in the primary," he says.

"We had close to 100 races in each party in the primary, while the Democratic Party has 13 in this one and Republicans only have four, you've got a lot less candidates driving their friends and neighbors to the polls."

That means only a fraction of the county's 2.3 million registered voters will decide who's on the ballot in November.

"It is a small number of people no doubt about," says Stanart.  "Those who participate, guess what?  Those few people, their vote has a higher weight."

Early voting ends Friday for Tuesday's runoff.  Stanart reminds voters their polling location is likely different than it was during the March primary.


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